


Window to the Multiverse (Close the Shutters, Lock the Doors)

by DragonSorceress22



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Bloodshed, Don't copy to another site, Fluffy Ending, Guns, I am meanest to my favorite characters, I just saw that tag and had to add it XD, M/M, Multiverse Shenanigans, Murder, Murder Husbands, One Shot, Post-Conan Kudou Shinichi, Some angst, Swearing, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, but also established relationship, fic-baited again, it's complicated - Freeform, or maybe he never was Conan, technically a get-together fic, thank you kaishin discord, your call
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 06:23:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20670764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSorceress22/pseuds/DragonSorceress22
Summary: Shinichi’s life could have taken a lot of turns. A lot of those turns lead to the same place though. The same person. But they could also lead somewhere… black.





	Window to the Multiverse (Close the Shutters, Lock the Doors)

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t ask me where Haibara is in this fic cause I never decided. You may fill in that gap however you please.
> 
> Beta’d by [solomonara](http://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara/works)! It’s even a little more up her alley for once, too! I think! Multiverse!

Sometimes Professor Agasa Hiroshi created useless things: scissors that made _snip_ sounds, appliances that carved watermelon sculptures, fax machines that looked like lunch boxes. This time it was a system that extrapolated all the possibilities of a person’s life. It was for entertainment purposes, he’d said, with a possible branch-out to psychological studies some day. But for now, Shinichi saw it for what it really was: a way for Agasa to see if, in any life, he might have been rich and successful.

At its root, the whole thing was really just numbers, and the possibilities were limitless, so Agasa designed a way to make the outputs palatable. They were fed into the brain through what had once been a VR helmet at 250,000 scenarios per second, taken in subconsciously. After a few minutes the helmet would facilitate a sort of meditation in which the brain would process all it could. The theory was that the scenarios that had been repeated the most, or that recurred with the most similarities, would then unfold in the conscious mind.

“I was right!” Agasa proclaimed after trying it himself. “Rich beyond belief!”

“And still a bachelor?” Shinichi asked with a smirk, but Agasa blushed, muttered, “Well, no,” and Shinichi left it at that. He could guess well enough that Agasa would have seen himself with his childhood sweetheart, Fusae Campbell.

“But still,” Agasa insisted. “If it’s a common enough scenario to turn up in the meditation stage, who’s to say it won’t happen in _this_ life?”

“Are you sure this thing even works, Professor?” Shinichi admonished. “Maybe you just fell asleep wearing the helmet and dreamed all that up.”

Agasa folded his arms and scowled. “Well if you’re so sure it’s nothing, why don’t you try it, Shinichi.”

Shinichi looked down at the helmet. It was a prototype – hardwired into the jury-rigged computer Agasa had built out for the project. It looked terrifying. But still… Agasa had used it and nothing had even exploded. That was impressive for one of his experiments. And regardless of his arguably numerous eccentricities, Agasa had never allowed anyone other than himself to test something that still had the potential for danger. Shinichi sat in the desk chair and picked up the helmet.

“Fine.”

~

Shinichi saw Kaitou KID.

Time after time, life after life, he saw flashes of white in KID’s suit and KID’s grin and the moonlight off KID’s monocle.

He saw himself with KID. He saw himself smiling and chasing and laughing with KID.

He saw himself loving KID. In every possible way.

And then he saw–

~

“Shinichi! Shinichi, please wake up! Shinichi, _please_!”

Agasa was shaking him by the shoulders. Shinichi was still sitting in the desk chair but the helmet was on the floor and Agasa looked frightened.

“What happened?” Shinichi asked. He felt dazed and… uneasy. His right hand twitched. It felt strangely light. Empty. Like he’d forgotten something or left something behind.

“You… You were…” Words failed him. Shinichi had gone rigid partway through the meditation cycle. He’d gone pale, had started flinching at nothing, had even begun to cry out in a broken, despairing voice for everything to just stop. “S-Something must have gone wrong,” Agasa skirted. “But it’s okay now. Don’t worry about it. How do you feel?”

Faintly queasy. Anxious. More than a little confused. Embarrassed. _KID… _“Uh, fine.” Shinichi stood with determination. “Fine.” He glanced at his watch without taking in the numbers and said, “It’s getting late. I think I’ll head home.”

That night, Shinichi dreamed.

~

“Shinichi?”

KID appeared from the shadows of the Kudou library and leaned against Shinichi’s armchair. He looked down at him in the lamplight then said without the slightest hint of a question, “Rough case.”

Shinichi nodded and closed his book slowly. “Why do people have to do horrible things to each other? All the time. Over and over.”

KID hummed thoughtfully and tugged Shinichi up from the chair so he could take his place and pull Shinichi onto his lap instead. “Well, you just said why, didn’t you? They feel like they have to. They all have their reasons in the end, don’t they? _The_ _motive_.”

“I guess,” Shinichi mumbled. “But none of those reasons make it okay. I don’t know what could.”

“You don’t need to know what or even _if _something could.” KID nuzzled into Shinichi’s collar and murmured against his neck, “Let that stay a mystery.”

He felt KID’s gentle kiss on his skin, felt soft, wild hair as he removed KID’s hat, saw the glint of brilliant blue as he set the monocle aside. He felt a heat like gold flames in his chest when he leaned in to kiss him, and he sighed his relief in one word against KID’s lips.

“_Kaito_…”

There were so many of those moments. With KID. With Kaito. Happy, heart pounding moments. Comfort. Understanding on a level he hadn’t known could exist.

His other half.

That phrase suddenly clicked in a way it never had for Shinichi. This was the kind of love people spent their whole lives hoping for, and it was theirs.

And it was about to be taken from him.

He was at the Organization’s mercy. Worse, _KID _was at the Organization’s mercy. They’d both been drugged, but KID had started to wake first, so he was the first to go into the Tank.

Brutish men and women in black prepared him: stripped away his cape and hat and monocle, took his gloves and his jacket, his tie and shoes and socks and all his tricks besides. KID couldn’t process any of it at the time, but when his mind came back to him he was already lying at the bottom of the Tank.

It was a glass box – a six foot square base with twenty foot walls and an open top. KID could have escaped it with nothing but his strength and agility, which was indeed all he had now, if not for the barbed wire. He had room enough at the bottom to get to his hands and knees, but any higher and he’d be caught in row after row of latticed barbed wire – some twenty wall-to-wall layers of it stretched out between him and the top. And then the Tank started to fill with water.

KID was six inches deep by the time he’d exhausted all other options. There were no other exits, and no way around the barbs but through. He could drown, or he could climb. He gritted his teeth and raised himself into the wires.

The square openings were cruelly sized – just large enough to give hope, just small enough to cut that hope away every time. Being careful took too long. The water was at his knees already and all he’d managed to do was stand and bleed.

The Tank was lit up, a spectacle on display, and in its glow Organization members placed bets on how far Kaitou KID would get. Five levels? Ten? Would he be overtaken and drown, or would he bleed out first?

Shinichi woke to arguments over the betting. Slowly, his mind took in the words. Slower, his body regained feeling, mobility. Finally, his eyes found Kaito, made the connection to the words he’d heard, realized the whole of the situation. Kaito was more than halfway up the Tank but the water was as well. It was at his shoulders and rising, and every move he made poured more blood out in thin red clouds around him.

His movements were slowing. The water was not.

He wouldn’t make it.

Shinichi pushed himself up before anyone even realized he was awake and lunged for the nearest better who was crouched on the floor over the books. He got hold of the man’s gun and emptied it into the side of the Tank, firing in a cluster near the bottom and counting on the force of some eighteen tons of water to break through.

It did, violently, glass and water crashing out over Shinichi and the four Organization members who had been arguing and betting instead of watching him. He had only a few seconds to clear his eyes and look around. They might have all been sprawled on the floor, but Shinichi was essentially surrounded. Three of them piled on him, beating abuse into any part of his body they could reach, but the fourth was tugging the gun from Shinichi’s hand. Shinichi’s finger was still on the trigger and it caught, pulling tight.

When the shot went off all five of them stopped. Then the man in front of Shinichi fell back, finally freeing the gun from Shinichi’s grasp as he went.

Shinichi couldn’t process it for a moment. The gun had been empty, or so he’d thought. Unless… unless there’d been a bullet in the chamber already the last time it was loaded. He stared. The evidence was right in front of him. No one else had a gun in their hand, and the man lying on the soaked floor had a gruesome bullet hole just below the left side of his jaw.

Shinichi was still staring when two of the men on top of him got hold of his arms. They dragged him to his feet, supporting him between them as the third drew a gun and took aim to put Shinichi down.

Shinichi looked at his murderer in a daze. Backlit by the Tank, he could barely make out more than a shadowy figure – like this one man with a gun was the embodiment of every criminal he’d ever faced up to now.

And then his eyes caught KID through the cracked glass. The water had rushed out from beneath him and he was left hanging limp in the net of barbed wire, his clothes and skin shredded. He wasn’t moving.

Shinichi’s blood ran suddenly hot through his body. He wrenched and shouted and thrashed until the shooter was forced to edge closer, uncertain of his aim in dim light with two comrades on either side of a struggling target.

The moment he was close enough, Shinichi kicked the gun out of the man’s hands then threw his weight to one side to topple the two restraining him. He wrestled a gun from the one pinned beneath him and shot point blank into the man’s stomach.

Hands were still clawing at him. The shadowy figures kept raising their guns. He shot the last two and collected their weapons, then backed, crouching, into a dark corner.

Reinforcements ran in; he shot each one as they came around the corner of the Tank. He shot until he ran out of bullets and he ran out of bullets the same time they ran out of people. And that felt _right_.

It was quiet now, the rush of water long past spent and the phantom echoes of gunfire muting everything. He found KID’s things and his own washed into his dark corner and picked out the card gun and grappling hook. He untangled his suspenders from the mess as well, then found some wire cutters in KID’s jacket. He rose to his feet.

He didn’t notice his arm was bleeding until he stooped to collect a fresh gun from the carnage near the Tank. He had no idea which of the shadows lying in the black puddles had managed to hit him. He didn’t care, and didn’t get close enough to see which had lived and which died. If he stopped, or thought, or looked too closely, he might just find that his aim was very good in some respects, and very terrible in others.

With his and KID’s tools, he gained the top of the Tank and hung over it. Carefully, slowly, he began to cut an opening through the wires between him and Kaito.

KID glanced up at the small quivers of the barbed web, his eyes glazed with blood loss. Shinichi was there, bloody, bruised, drenched and determined, reaching a hand out to pull him free. Shaking, KID reached up and took it.

“_Shinichi_…”

The Organization was at their mercy, but they had none.

Shinichi was perched on a wide file cabinet, one leg propped with his foot on the edge, the other dangling down against the drawers. His gun was in his hand, resting just beside him on the top of the cabinet. He looked out across the office space. The blood mottling the grey carpet squares looked dark even under rows of glaring fluorescents.

“That the last one?”

KID glanced back at him, turning just enough that Shinichi could see the thin man hanging by his bloodied shirt collar from KID’s fist. “Mm,” KID agreed. A metal card appeared in his right hand, twirling between his fingers for a few moments as though KID was pondering something. But then he fixed his grip and slashed, and the image of the black spade was painted over with red. KID dropped the man aside. “The police?” he asked mildly.

“You still need to ask?”

KID’s grin was sharp under the shadow of his hat. “Ah Tantei-kun, we really do make a great team. We’ll be the new Jack the Ripper, don’t you think? Murder after murder and they’ll never catch up, never even come close.”

“And never suspect,” Shinichi agreed with a shrug. “Hard to make an argument against people who are dead.”

Stripping off his soiled gloves, KID stepped over the nearest body and came up to the file cabinet. Shinichi immediately removed KID’s hat and leaned down to kiss him. He was rough and rewarding, a hard fistful of KID’s messy hair grasped in his hand, tugging when he wanted more access past KID’s lips. KID let him in. He submitted and enjoyed it and was gone to it enough that he didn’t catch the sound that made Shinichi break the kiss. “Just a second,” he panted into KID’s ear.

Shinichi raised his gun over KID’s shoulder and fired. One of the bodies was still moving, was reaching for a fallen gun. Shinichi’s bullet pierced the reaching hand and there was barely time for an attempted cry to catch in the bloody throat before another went through the brain.

The cold focus in the bright blue of Shinichi’s eyes drew KID’s hand to his cheek, tilting Shinichi’s lips back to his with renewed hunger. Shinichi responded in kind, but he also brought the gun up and pressed the muzzle behind KID’s earlobe, searing his skin. KID did not pull away. He pressed closer, gasping into Shinichi’s mouth and feeding him a whimper once the gun was taken away.

“You left one alive,” Shinichi muttered against KID’s lips.

“I’m sorry, Shinichi,” KID breathed.

“Don’t let it happen again.”

~

Shinichi woke, terrified. He could still feel the gun in his hand, could still smell the blood, could still taste KID’s tongue in his mouth. He was trembling and gasping for breath alone in his dark room, in his huge house, and the comfort and understanding he had never known could exist he now craved like a physical need.

_KID…_

His hands shook as he picked up his phone and opened a text to KID’s number. He hadn’t tried to use it even once in the twenty-three days since KID had snuck it into his contacts list at a heist. It was an invitation, he knew now, but he hadn’t had the courage to accept it. But KID had been smiling then – smiling like he had in all those other lives before – and Shinichi didn’t have the courage _not_ to accept anymore.

_KID_

_Please_

_I need you_

He dropped the phone and crumpled to the bed again, face down and clutching at the sheets. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, shaking and nauseous, but eventually there was a gentle hand on his shoulder, and a soft voice at his side.

“Tantei-kun…?”

He wasn’t alone now, and he found the strength he needed to pull himself together. He sat up.

“Ka– KID.”

“Are you all right? What happened?”

KID was leaning over him, concern in every moonlit feature. Shinichi shivered.

“Before that,” he said firmly. “Before that, I need you to answer something for me.”

“I’ll… do what I can?” KID hedged. Shinichi was more relaxed now, so KID straightened up and waited for his question.

“Are we friends, KID?” he asked.

KID blinked at him but Shinichi didn’t clarify, just stared up from the bed with dark, determined eyes.

“In the conventional sense,” KID started slowly, confused and wary. “No. We don’t hang out, or eat each other’s food, or know each other’s families. We don’t even text.” _Barring one mysterious heart-attack of an exception tonight. _He was watching Shinichi closely but Shinichi’s expression didn’t change. He looked just as determined when he asked, “And in the unconventional sense?”

KID sighed. “In the unconventional sense… Yes, Tantei-kun. I consider you a friend.”

This time the words had effect. Shinichi slumped, and a small sigh shook out of him. “One more question then, and I need you to be completely honest with me. Could we be more than friends?”

KID froze. His mind took advantage of the pause to spin exuberant fantasies around the new potential implications of Shinichi’s text. “Wha…” he breathed out, so faintly Shinichi might not have heard.

“Any honest answer is fine,” Shinichi went on. “You can say you don’t know, or tell me I’m crazy and put a restraining order on me, but I’ve seen some things now and I just need to know how _you_ feel. I need to know that first.”

KID sobered quickly. Shinichi was acting strange. There was definitely something bigger behind these questions. Something serious. “What happened, Tantei-kun–”

“Your _answer_, Kaito!” Shinichi had folded in on himself again, hunched forward and grasping the sheets in both fists. “I can’t tell you without that.”

The silence stretched and Shinichi’s stomach clenched with the sudden fear that when he looked up, KID would be gone. He braced himself to do just that, but halted at KID’s stricken voice.

“How… do you know–”

Shinichi did look up then, startled, and breathed, “Your name. Shit, I’m sorry. I know your name but I didn’t mean to find out. I wouldn’t… I couldn’t ever use it against you.”

“And why not?”

Shinichi met KID’s eyes. “Your answer, KID.”

Kaito’s breath felt locked in his chest. When he finally released it, it shuddered past his lips. “Yes. Yes, everything in me wants to just fall head over heels stupid in love when I see you, but I never let myself. It just seemed like it would be dangerous for us both.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Shinichi muttered, and then he was sliding off the bed and pulling KID into a tight hug. KID returned it and felt wave after wave of relief – that he could finally do something to comfort Shinichi now, that he could be honest with his feelings, that he could stop worrying over ‘what ifs’ alone and just face what was _with_ Shinichi.

“Will you tell me now?” KID murmured. “What happened to you?”

Shinichi did. He told KID about Agasa’s experiment. He told him in vagaries about the times he’d seen them together, then told him in detail about the things he’d seen them do once the Organization had caught up.

“I couldn’t remember it at first,” Shinichi explained. “But I know now that I’d just repressed it. And then the dreams…”

KID made a small sound of acknowledgement. It was… a lot to take in. He could understand perfectly how awful it must have been for Shinichi to try to process it alone. “You said the idea is that the most common scenarios come to the conscious mind after you receive the subliminal data,” KID said. They were sitting now, just on the floor, side by side leaning their backs against Shinichi’s bed, but KID had encouraged Shinichi to stay close with an arm around his waist, and Shinichi pressed even closer now at the steady way KID grasped his situation.

“That’s right,” Shinichi agreed.

“I have another theory. What the conscious mind grasps isn’t determined by the system; it depends on the brain. On the person. What if the things that come to the surface are only the things that make the biggest impression – good or bad?”

“It… makes as much sense as anything,” Shinichi allowed.

KID nodded. “And anyway,” he added offhand. “You’re not scared we’re going to become that.” Shinichi looked startled. KID pressed on. “If you really were, then calling me here was the last thing you’d have done.”

Shinichi relaxed into a smirk at that. “If needing you with me could drive me to mass murder, why do you think I would let the mere possibility of that scenario stop me from reaching out to you?”

KID’s loud laugh somehow brightened the dark room. “Come hell or high water, huh? You sure know how to flatter a guy.” He found Shinichi’s eyes in the moonlight and smiled – a smile soft with understanding. “Too bad that’s just not true. I know you, Shinichi. And now that we both know where certain things lead, there’s no danger. _That’s _why you called me.”

Shinichi blushed and looked away. “And… the rest?” he asked quietly.

“Us together, you mean?” KID grinned. “Can’t say this is how I imagined it coming about, but you can bet I _was_ imagining it. I’m here for you, Shinichi. Any time you want me.”

“Kaito…”

He turned toward KID and took his hand and Kaito met him in a soft, gentle kiss. A promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, my deers~♥
> 
> If anyone here follows my Fall into Flying series, Tales of Travel is officially in beta! I hope to be able to start posting in October, assuming no massive restructuring is needed… Fingers crossed!


End file.
